Have you ever wondered what techniques and skills are learnt during a beginner’s freediving course? We’re here to help you! We’ll be covering all the basics, whilst giving you some practical tips on how to get started. The techniques and skills learnt on a beginners freediving course are identical to the skills deep freedivers hone whilst plunging into the depths of the ocean. As you progress, these techniques and skills are continuously being developed, refining and diving deep into the details.
Relaxation for beginners
Relaxation in freediving is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but it’s an extremely important skill; both mentally and physically. It’s the first technique we learn in a course, and without it, you will get no where. Why is relaxation so important? For starters, it’s one of the key ingredients that helps us save that precious oxygen freedivers need in order to stay conscious throughout the whole dive. But relaxation is much more then that. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to focus on the task at hand, or be sensitive to what’s happening when learning freediving techniques and skills. Think about it. How can you learn new skills when you’re feeling stressed? It won’t happen. Deeper Relaxation happens when we’ve trained the skills tirelessly and automated every single details. The truth is, the more you freedive, the more you dig deep, the deeper states of relaxation you feel and the more doors open. Relaxation is in fact, a topic we can spend hours about talking.
Every time we hold our breath and go for a dive, we need to relax. We need to calm our mind and body to a state of peace. An essential beginner technique we need in freediving, which we continuously develop. And this is how we do it.
Step by step approach on Freediving relaxation technique:
- Lie down on a yoga mat in the shavasana position and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths and imagine and energy force pulsating through you from head to toe, with each inhalation and exhalation. Resume to normal breathing
- Now begin scanning your body for tension, starting form the crown of the head, making your way down to your toes. Going through each body part. Release the tension you find on each exhale. The breath should remain neutral – do not manipulate it in any way.
- As your body is at complete rest, it’s time to relax and focus the mind. The aim here is to keep the mind present and focused on; the breath, parts of your body touching the floor, sounds, water, colours behind your eyes, sun, skin etc.. Try to keep the mind focused for 20 seconds on each input.
Relaxation is best learnt during static apnea trianingstatic apnea trianing on a beginners course.
Technique 2: The Full Breath
After we are relaxed and calm, we need to fill our lungs with air. This ultimately, is what will be feeding our body and tissues with oxygen during the freedive. Essentially, we have two sets of muscles we use to breathe; the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles. The diaphragm, which is located below the lungs, is the major muscle of respiration. It is a large, dome-shaped muscle that runs from the front, all the way to the back. Whilst on the other hand, the intercostal muscles are found in between the ribs, and are responsible for expanding and shrinking the size of the chest cavity.
How to take the full breath
Step 1
Whilst lying down, place one hand on the belly and one hand on the chest. Now, breathe into your belly, making sure only the hand on the belly is moving up and down. Whilst breathing, you can purse your lips to constrict airflow. You will gain more control over the diaphragm.
Step 2
Place your hands onto the side of your chest wall (lower half). Begin by breathing deep into your chest by making an ‘AAAHHHH’ sound. You should feel your chest expanding both side ways and out and upwards towards the sky. Try constricting the airflow for more control.
Step 3
Once you gained good control of the breathing muscles, it’s time to put it all together. Take approximately two minutes to relax whilst placing one hand on the belly and one on the chest. Constricting the airflow, begin breathing into the belly, feeling the hand rise. Once full, continue breathing into the chest, expanding the ribcage.
Beginner Freediving Technique 3: Buoyancy skills
During a freedive, divers succumb to all forces of buoyancy acting on their body; Positive buoyancy, neutral buoyancy and negative buoyancy. These forces would either keep a body floating, neutral (floating in space) or sinking. Archimedes principle states:
A body, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, experiences an upthrust equal to the weight of the fluid displaced
Three factors that effect our buoyancy are:
The volume of your lungs
A larger volume displaces more water and creates more upthrust. The opposite would happen with a smaller volume. The lung volume changes as we descend and ascend because of the pressure change.
Water density
In fresh water, a body would feel ‘heavier’ because water is less dense (density of . In salt water, our body feels ‘lighter’ because water is more dense.
Thickness and density of wetsuits
The neoprene in the wetsuits carry small bubbles which make the suit less dense than water, which causes plenty of positive buoyancy. As a diver descends, the gas bubbles compress making the suit become ‘heavier’
Freedivers would want to weight themselves based on the type of water and wetsuit.
How to weight yourself for freediving:
Step 1
Relax on the buoy and take you full breath (important it’s full).
Step 2
Gently pull yourself down using the FIM discipline until you reach 10 metres.
Step 3
Turn yourself the right way round, making sure your chest is in line with the 10 metre mark. Whilst holding onto the line release your hand and observe what happens to your body.
If we want to be neutral at 10 metres, our body will hover around that mark. whilst if we begin floating, this means we are under water and need to add some weight. A sinking body means there is too much weight. Remove some and test again.
Duck diving for beginners
The duck dive. A technique many beginners find a bit of a nuisance to learn. The duck dive helps a freediver overcome the first few metres (around two to five) of positive buoyancy without using too much energy (if executed correctly). It can make or break your dive. When not executed correctly, the freediver will use far too much energy with their fins. Performed properly, this technique will help you descend comfortably and in a relaxed manner despite the positive buoyancy.
How to duck dive for freediving
The duck dive technique can be performed in different ways; however, we are focusing on relaxation and comfort first. The steps of the duck dive are as follows:
Step 1
While laying horizontally and face-down in the water, take one full breath, then remove your snorkel from your mouth and equalize at the surface.
Step 2
Take one second to fully relax. One arm stays on the nose to equalize while the other points toward the pool/ocean floor.
Step 3
Perform a flutter kick to get a bit of momentum along the buoy until your hips are next to the dive line (this will position you facing the line after your duck dive is complete).
Step 4
Send your hips and butt up like you are trying to ‘roll overa barrel’ and bend your upper body down at a 90° angle. One arm stays pointing down to the pool/ocean floor, the other hand remains on your nose to let you equalize when needed. Your legs remain straight and parallel to the surface during this movement.
Step 5
Swing your legs straight up in the air. Once they are completely vertical, perform an arm pull with your non-equalizing arm.
Step 6
Start finning once your fins are underwater.
Technique 5: The turn
Once you reach your target depth, it is important to perform your bottom turn in a controlled and relaxed manner by using the dive line. This ensures that you don’t stretch too much at depth, which could place stress on your lungs. A proper turn will also allow you to pull on the dive line, gaining momentum for the beginning of the ascent and signaling to your buddy that you are on your way back to the surface. The forward tumble turn is the technique we will use for all depth disciplines.
How to turn
Grab the line in front of your eyes with the thumb pointing toward your destination (the surface). Continue descending along the line until your grabbing hand is at waist level and use your momentum and gravity to perform a slow and relaxed front flip before pulling once on the line.
Step 1
Stop your descent by grabbing the line in front of your eyes with your thumb pointing to your destination (the surface).
Step 2
Continue descending along the line until your grabbing hand is at waist level.
Step 3
Fold your body forward (making a front flip) around the grabbing hand.
Step 4
You should end up next to the line after finishing the front flip while still holding the line.
Step 5
Pull once with the grabbing hand to start the ascent, which also signals to your buddy that you are coming up.
Technique 6: Bi-fin technique
A great bifin technique, also known as the ‘flutter kick,’ is the basis of freediving. This technique has just recently become a competitive discipline under the acronym CWTB (Constant Weight with Bifins). But even more so, the bifin technique is used for much of recreational freediving, acting as a buddy or safety diver, swimming from shore to reach a diving location, teaching, and the first technique taught to students to descend to depth without the aid of the dive line in FIM.
The bifin technique greatly benefits from new developments in freediving gear. Modern freediving fins are skillfully produced with fiberglass or carbon blades that allow for dives to depths that looked impossible only a few years ago. But the best gear is of little use if your technique needs work. Even the greatest piece of gear will not enable you to achieve your goals; a great bifin technique always comes first!
Read more on B-fin technique here
Beginner Freediving Technique 7: Frenzel Equalisation
The Frenzel maneuver is the preferred method for freediving because smaller muscle groups are used to perform the technique and there is no need to use your breathing muscles to push air up from your lungs into your nasal cavity. This helps you remain relaxed at depth and is also a more controlled way to equalize.
How to Frenzel, Step by step
Step 1
Pinch your nostrils
Step 2
Position the front of your tongue at the roof of your mouth as if you are making a‘T’or‘K’ sound. These are tongue locks called the T and K locks. Alternatively, squeeze your lips and cheeks as if you are saying ‘P’ forcefully. This is the P lock, where your cheeks are used to equalize instead of your tongue.
Step 3
Close your vocal folds and lift your larynx up to push air out of your mouth and into your nose.
Step 4
You will feel a popping or clicking sound as the air equalizes in your middle ear.
Step 5
Repeat the above steps each time you need to equalize.
Read more about the Frenzel here
Conclusion
The beginner techniques we learn in freediving courses will get better with practice. It’s important to note that levelling up your certificate does not necessarily mean you will improve at these skills. Most of the time, courses are short with the aim of certifying freedivers. If you want to get better, look for a coach who can analyse your diving and spend time working with you
